Abstract:

In considering what authentic assessment means in summative school assessments the question ‘authentic to what?’ arises. To start investigating how digital assessments can be more authentic to teaching and learning we scoped the literature to address three questions.
The aim was to collate information to better understand the potential of digital technologies across the two contexts of
a) teaching & learning, and
b) assessment and use that information to understand how they align (or not).

Inspired by definitions in the literature and for the purpose and specific context of the literature review, we defined our terms. For example, we took Affordances to mean the beneficial features of digital technologies that support users.

1: What are the affordances of teaching & learning with digital technology?
For teaching & learning, the evidence related to three themes: tools, content, and practices:
• Affordances of the tools include instant interactions, oral recording, webinars, multimodal presentations, screen recording, the sharing of artefacts and learners’ work.
• Affordances of the content include intelligent tutoring systems, feedback to learners, simulations, interactive content, and use of animations and reports on participation.
• Affordances of the practices include integration of learning and learners from different locations, self-paced modules, anytime-anywhere learning, and discussion boards.

2: What are the affordances of digital, summative assessments?
Affordances seen in digital assessments included: adaptive layouts to give all learners accessibility, the use of authentic and large data sets, collaborative problem solving with avatars, a variety of response methods, interactive modes of response, adaptive testing, ability for learners to personalise their test format, flexibility of location of assessment, flexible scheduling and using augmented and virtual reality and simulations.

3: How do the affordances of teaching & learning align with the affordances of assessment?
Addressing questions 1 and 2 allowed us to then see which affordances are relevant to teaching & learning and assessment. Some affordances had exact matches, some were similar, and, for some, no alignment was observed. We will describe the alignment (and lack of alignment).
Finally, the analysis has allowed the development of a broader conceptual framework for categorising all affordances (not only those shared across teaching & learning and assessment).

The types of affordances in this framework include:
adaption, interaction, multi-media, metacognition, navigation, practical aids, personalisation, physical, socialisation, synthesis, temporal, and virtual.

The aim is to use the work to design digital assessments which are authentic to teaching & learning and to make full use of the opportunities that digital offers to design validity, fairness and good user experience into digital assessments from the start. We believe that further work is needed so that the work can be used in that way: next steps should include the validation of the framework of affordances and research which identifies the tools, content and practices used in the classroom and their affordances.

Keywords:

Assessment, digital, affordances.